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Take Your Head Out of Your…uh…The Sand

Ever get so disgusted with both sides of a debate that you want to light your hair on fire. Happens to me all the time.

I listened today to a debate on a television news show, one that many of you probably watch. The issue was why it is, or is not, important to recognize the recent violent acts against police, soldiers and individuals as terrorism. Of course, one of the debaters made the point that it really does not matter what we call them; the acts were despicable and the perpetrators should be punished. In his mind, calling them terrorists is just part of some right wing agenda to discredit the president, or to inflame public opinion on the matter.

I waited expectantly, hopefully, for the person on the other side of the argument to make their case, setting the record straight. My advocate started to speak. My heart raced in excitement knowing that he was about to slam dunk his points and shred the other’s arguments.

The second person made the point that by declaring those acts as terrorism the government had many more tools and resources at their disposal in investigating and preparing cases against the perpetrators. The additional resources were the reason that these acts must be immediately declared terrorism and the perpetrators must be identified as terrorists. Using the Terrorism word, to the debater’s way of explaining things, seemed to be a convenient tool.

Huh?

I went to the kitchen, frantically searching for a lighter, or matches or some convenient source of combustion so that I could light my hair on fire and end it all. Fortunately, my wife made me quit smoking some time ago…except for the occasional cigar.

Back to the debate. I screamed at the television talking heads. They should be called terrorists because that’s what they are. They say that’s what they are for God’s sake! They have all publicly stated that they are part of the militant Islamic jihad against western culture, the United States in particular and any country or person who aligns themselves with us.

To deny that they are Islamic terrorists is the same as saying to the Nazis and Hitler that you really aren’t aggressive murderers. We’ll overlook that little matter of expansion into Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and France and Russia and…hell, everywhere. And pay no mind to the fact that you are actively seeking to rid Europe and the rest of the world of Jews and other “undesirables”, and that you even said so publicly in mass meetings to the raised arms of saluting Germans and wrote about it in your book Mein Kampf. Oh wait a minute, someone did say that. Ever hear of Neville Chamberlain?

Okay to the point then…the reason to call them terrorists is that it is…TRUE!

Truth. What an amazing concept.

It does matter what we call them, just as it mattered that Chamberlain recognize what the Nazis and Hitler were. He did not, or chose not to recognize what they were, and the world paid a price.

While I am all in favor of additional resources to track down and fight terrorists who want to kill us, the additional resources are not the reason to call them terrorists. By the way, I am in favor of those additional resources as long as they do not infringe on the rights and freedoms of the rest of us.

Yes, it is nice to have those additional resources, but additional resources are not the reason we should fight them. We fight them because THEY ARE TERRORISTS. That is the pure unmitigated truth. They want to destroy us and they will kill anyone, to do so. Those are their words, not mine.

Additional resources are nice, but Truth matters. Recognizing and articulating the Truth should be reason enough for us to act. We should fight for truth and not use the convenient rationale that by labeling our enemies as terrorists we have many more resources in the fight. We call them terrorists because…they are.

And if we fight them because they are terrorists, then we should correctly identify what we are fighting…Militant Islamic TERRORISM.

Enough PC talk and college debating trying to score points for arguments made. Time to take our heads out of our…out of the sand…and stop denying reality, as if that makes the Boogie Man go away. It does not. It only makes him stronger and more frightening. The truth matters.